In Memoriam

Well, I got the word yesterday that the hard drive is a total loss. My only option is to pay big bucks to have somebody take it apart in a clean room and recover the data. Alas, I don't have that kind of money, so I must start over from scratch. I post this to remember everything that I lost.

Deadliest Cachalot - My story for the Dead Bait anthology, about people on a whale-watching tour near the Farallon Islands (30 miles west of San Francisco) who are attacked by mutated Sperm whales and giant albino crabs. I suppose I could try rewriting this one, but right now I just don't feel like it.

The Transcendental Man - My time travel story that was going to be subbed to one of two upcoming time themed anthologies. I really like the idea in this one, so this one will definitely be rewritten.

The Madness in Their Eyes - An older story I spruced up in the last couple of months. A trio of campers find something strange in an old mine, then they begin acting weird...but who is really behaving strangely - Tommy or the other two? Are those extradimensional beings real or just figments of his imagination? This story is now history.

The Faceless Ones - My Devil's Food story. A bunch of college frat boys are playing tricks on the homeless people of the city, but find that many of the vagrants have been organized by someone into a cult. A cult whose god is fairly hungry. I have not heard back from this one yet. If it is rejected, I hope they can salvage the file and send it back to me.

Pruritus Maximus - This one was written for the Dark Jesters anthology and made it fairly close to the final round (I think). It's the story of a man that takes a dare and as a result, his testicles begin to itch and won't stop. At first this leads to some embarrassing situations, but as the ultimate itch grows in intensity, things take a darker turn. Like The Faceless Ones, this is currently subbed and if rejected again, may be salvaged. The wife has an older version on her computer, so it’s not a total loss.

Nuts – This one was accepted by 52 Stitches, so when it goes online, I can copy and paste it back into my files!

Download – This story was never subbed because I just couldn’t get the technology to work within the story, but kept the piece in hopes of working it out someday. It revolves around a youth downloading music, which inadvertently sets of the apocalypse.

Reflections of Infinity – My horror/science fiction novel. Only the prologue and first two chapters were completed, so it wasn’t too bad of a loss. Still, I liked what was there. Sigh.

The Architects of Entropy – One of the first stories I ever submitted. It sucks. Bigtime. Cosmic beings known as Eternity and Infinity are shepherded by a third named Destiny. The trio try explaining to their master why Humans are so slow in progressing. This was my lame ass attempt to explain why the scientific method was dropped for a while at one time in the past. Losing it is no loss, though I love the title so much I am determined to use it again some day.

GIA Files: The Axis War - A story I wrote for my friend’s science fiction universe about an Earth colony’s war for Independence. He may still have a copy.

The Ice Pond – A nonfiction piece I wrote about my mother when she was a child in the 1930’s. It was published in Good Old Days Magazine. Alas, my contributor’s copy is now missing.

On Thin Ice – A story about a young girl encountering a water fairy in a frozen pond. Based on my mother’s experience as a child (though she never met any fairy).

The Portrait - A fantasy story about a man who can paint portraits that tell that person’s future. He paints one for the king and an assassination plot is uncovered….but who is really pulling all the strings?

A Counterpoint of Shadows – A fantasy story about a group of people trapped in an inn during a harsh winter storm. There is a murder, but no one there is what they appear to be, including the man sent by the king to trail the killer.

Who Hunts The Hunters? - Working title for a story about a group of deer hunters that uncovers the truth behind the spooky legends surrounding a local gulch. This one was about 50% completed. I'll probably revisit the idea some day.

The Weed - Working title for a story about a woman who has a weed in her front yard that seems to be moving closer and closer to her house. Is it related to the strange sounds she hears at night or her boyfriend's increasingly strange behavior? About 30% complete. Another I'll return to at some point.

Flash and Micros – There were a handful of flash and micro fiction pieces that went bye bye as well. Since they were so short, I feel that they can be rewritten rather easily.

Fanfic – While it never had a shot of being published anywhere except the internet, I had several Star Trek fanfics that I had written. Gone.

In addition to all the finished stuff, there were several “in progress” stories as well as copious notes for others. All shot to hell now. I had rather large files detailing the fantasy world I created: notes on kingdoms, people, cultures, geographic features and what not. Likewise for my science fiction setting, where all the info on aliens, planets, interstellar governments and what not is now all gone, down the black hole of crashed hard drives.

All my non fiction is gone. Columns I wrote for various websites (and which are no longer around): gone. Fortunately, much of that type of stuff is still online, so I can easily retrieve it. The 400,000+ words for my B-movie website are also gone, along with every graphic, screen cap, sound file and video clip. Those can be retrieved, but it will be a time consuming affair.

Music and TV. While I can easily replace all the music files, I won’t bother with the 4 seasons of Doctor Who and two seasons of Torchwood that are gone. I have the DVD’s, but having the episodes on the computer was rather nice.

There is a lot more that is gone like photos, graphics, porn (yes, I fully admit to having porn on the computer) various programs and games, but those are easily replaced.

What really bums me out are the lists I kept that are now gone. I mentioned my book list the other day. I’ll have to do that one over, but I will never be able to put them in the order I read them again, so I’ve decided to just make a master list of all my books. Ditto with the DVD and VHS lists I had.

Overall, it's a dark day in these parts. Time to go medicate myself with pretzels and soda...